Presidential

Moving Towards Progress

Cameroon Tribune today launches a series of special publications on how government has overcome the socioeconomic, political and security challenges during the past seven years.

The Statesmanship of President Paul Biya for the ending sevenyear mandate is being placed under the political microscope by many a Cameroonian including those who think can do better in steering the ship of the nation to progress.

The Cameroon nation has, as many must have observed, gone through very challenging socio-economic, political and security test-tube.

Political and administrative efforts deployed to provide lasting solutions to these upheavals inevitably serve as veritable measuring instrument for the successes registered during the ending seven years of President Paul Biya. Election time as the common man knows is time for political promises.

It is equally time for stock taking on the realizations of the outgoing candidates. All candidates but one angle their campaign on what went wrong with very few looking at what went right.

Many political programmes are tailored to fill what incoming candidates see as impending vacuum. That is what politics is all about. But sometimes it is equally important to look at the successes in order to better measure the milestone covered.

The special series to be published in the next ten days intends to point out some of the challenges that starred the nation on the face and the strategy deployed by the man Paul Biya to overcome them.

As observed by some Cameroonians, despite the hurdles, the country continues to move towards progress thanks to its resilience. Government action streamlined and executed within the realms of its famous programme budget took into consideration the needs and demands of the people.

How far these needs and desires were satisfied is another issue but it is important to note that something was done and continues to be done to satisfy the governed. Worthy of note are projects realized in the fields of education, health, agriculture, energy and water, employment, information and Communication technology, and politics.

The seven years of President Biya have in stock an enriched educational checkered board characterised by increased number of schools, recruitment of new teachers both technical and general and creation of new universities. New infrastructures equally cropped up. The launching of the universal health coverage programme remains vivid in many minds.

The said programme earmarked the construction of about 100 health centres, and the provision of subsidies for the treatment of vulnerable groups of people. The several months of stay in Cameroon of the Mercy Ships tells of the milestone covered in the health sector.

The energy sector appears to be one of the areas where government prevailed so well within the seven years. The construction of Lom Pangar reserve dam, the Memve'ele and Mekin hydroelectric dams and the creation of the National Electricity Transmission Corporation (SONATREL) are some of the projects to show.

The seven years ending have very disturbing memories on the growing security challenges in some of the regions of the country. The Far North and the Boko Haram factor, the East and the spillover of the conflict in neighbouring Central African Republic and now the socio-political crisis in the North West and South West Regions are the major security issues government was compelled to tackle through the deployment of defence forces and the provision of humanitarian assistance.